Welcome Irish & British readers

A big hearty welcome to British and Irish readers. I am delighted Malarky is now published in the UK and Ireland. (and Aus, NZ, S Africa, India & all commonwealth countries). I very much hope you find my novel engaging and thank you most sincerely for reading it.

There was a lovely review in Saturday’s Irish Independent and a nice shout out from Colum McCann in today’s Sunday Independent, Colum  chose Malarky as one of his summer recommendations. Thank you to Colum, a writer I have long admired and respected.

This week I am in Dublin doing interviews about Malarky. I’ll be on TV3 The Morning Show on Wednesday.  I am enjoying being home. The big story is my sister’s greyhound Sally. I send special love out to greyhound owners, rescue services, since this dog is exceptional. Affectionate and both snoozy and sweet. (Not quite what I envisaged from a greyhound). Today we walked along the canal with her. I am not so much of a dog person, but Sally has converted me to these wonderful creatures. I may have to revise my ambition to be reincarnated as a penguin.

There was patchy drizzle this morning in Dublin, which by night gave way to a stronger downpour. Gardens are looking terrific from the recent hot spell. And it’s good to have access to Cadbury’s Turkish Delight and more importantly lively exchange and great friends.

Next week I will be in London talking to the media about Malarky. If you wish to interview me please do contact either me (mrsokana@gmail.com) or my publicist Henry Jeffreys at Oneworld in London. Or Cormac Kinsella my publicist in Dublin.

More weather reports to follow.

Best to all for now, AK.

Footless and sunny

We have had two consecutive days of sunshine & I’ve had two consecutive days of operating on one foot temporarily. I’m growing accustomed to both.

I failed to report the generous digging of my community garden patch by Helen & Earl. Collectively we have 182 + years between us. It took approx 117 of those years to finally remove that other pesky half of the granny geranium plant. It takes a village to dig out a stubborn geranium. Happy June to you all.

Weather score

There is a most tuneful wind happening outside at this hour that is interspersed with a tinkling of light rain against the window. Sometimes the weather is so melodious despite its dour visuals. Today overcast beyond overcast after yesterday’s beloved bright blue.

I had a major gardening expedition yesterday with the prompting and assistance of G — another gardener at our community garden. G suggested we cut back my nuclear granny of a geranium and transplant her to the borders of our larger garden. Granny Geranium is a massive bird of a plant. She’s the size of a peacock with its feathers spanning out.

After at least 25 minutes of serious navvy activity with a fork and a spade each we finally managed to remove about a half of said granny geranium. Then we carried her to the border. I can attest she was the weight of a man. I remarked to G it was like hauling a dead body, although I have no experience of such to be clear.

What was stunning was her roots had gone so far down, which G pointed out is precisely what the plant is meant to do. She is doing exactly what she should, she kept warmly observing. I left with mud in my eye, muddy arms and fantastically muddy legs. It was exhilarating I confess and I admitted to G … you know I don’t think I ever truly gardened until this moment.

In minor but worthy of note excitement, the first potato is making his presence felt. I already killed the fennel (who kills fennel?) but it may yet reincarnate.

Sudden weather and pan-free turkey

Yesterday there was a very sudden weather event. By sudden, I mean it had come to my notice all of a sudden. I was only just finished contemplating the last Pineapple Express, there had been some sunny spells and patchy drizzle and then the sudden weather event occurred. By evening the sudden weather event was in full swing-dazzle.

Wind. A biting wind followed by ransacking rain. How do I know this? I did what every sensible weather wonderer does and went jogging in it! I also compiled a bunch of descriptions of this weather event as it happened from friends in Victoria, Nanaimo, Strathcona and the DTES. The Island, Victoria, saw the worst of the wind. One friend reported her AM radio signal was interfered with! Another her house was shaking by the wind.

Today sun. We like this although we didn’t dislike the sudden weather event it merely caught our full attention.

*

In a moment of madness I have purchased a large frozen turkey. I have never successfully cooked a small chicken and I own no roasting pan to fit the large turkey. One has been procured. Tomorrow amid the other details of my work day I will be attempting to roast a turkey. It feels like a random act to be roasting a turkey on an average Friday.

My other bubbling ambition this week is to frame a house. I have watched youtube videos but am not yet overcome with any super woman sense I too can frame a house from watching them. I did, however, build a teapot shelf. I am not yet quite satisfied with my teapot shelf.

I was disappointed that youtube does not contain the how to roast a turkey if you don’t have a roasting pan video I hoped existed. There’s a niche for someone with ambition…

Stormin’ H

As promised, with patience, here is the storm from p33 of Bertrand Sinclair’s The Hidden Places. (1922)

“He sat now staring out the window. A storm had broken over Vancouver that day. To-night it was still gathering force. The sky was a lowering, slate-coloured mass of clouds, spitting squally bursts of rain that drove in wet lines against his window and made the street below a glistening area shot with tiny streams and shallow puddles that were splashed over the curb by rolling motor wheels. The wind droned its ancient, melancholy chant among the telephone wires, shook with its unseen, powerful hands a row of bare maples across the way, rattled the windows in their frames. Now and then, in a momentary lull of the wind, a brief cessation fo the city noises, Hollister could hear far off the beat of the Gulf seas bursting on the beach at English Bay, snoring in the mouth of False Creek. A dreadry, threantening night that fitted his mood. ”

The storm then gives way to more from our operatic male (common place in BC literature of this & later periods it seems)
“He sat pondering over the many-horned dilemma upon which he hung impaled. He had done all that a man could do. He had given the best that was in him, played the game faithfully., according to the rules. And the net result had been for him the most complete disaster.”

I must pause here and interrupt this programming to give you a 7 hour respite before we hear Hollister continue his aria into the verdant moss of his wife!

Pineapple Express busted

The Pineapple Express weather event had silenced me, but fear no more for the heat of the sun has rejoined us. We have a SUNNY break. That be a blast of sun that may disappear behind the trees (or condos) before I put a full stop on this sentence.

The promised rise in temperature on the third day of the Pineapple (Saturday) did not materialize and last night out at an event and a late night dinner I fair froze on exit. It was lepping cold! The previous evening my partner Jeremy and I were discussing the Pineapple and concluded the experience matched the sense of being “sub aquatic.”

*

Onward with Mr Tim Parks prostate memoir. What a complicated organ! What a disadvantage and complex matter it is to be embodied at times. So many organs, so many muscles, so much can go wrong. He has now moved into what may be the final four hundred metres lap/ furlong and is concluding his problems are myofascial pain. Am I right Mr P?

I was particularly taken with the line where the man running the mediation/relaxation class tells him Senor Parks I have never met a man so utterly unable to relax as you before. I’m a tad confused by his title, since sitting still may actually be what caused his problems to start with. But all shall be revealed during my final Ascot type reading of this text. Squeezed in between a stack of deadlines and pain complications.

Withering weather

There are up to 20 weather warnings today in our province. For our city, it is rain and for the Island wind warnings. It occurred to me that we haven’t had so many rainfall warnings this season, yet it never seems to cease raining.

Friday was a particularly abysmal day. Yesterday a beautiful blast of blue light, which now has given way to worse than Friday.

I think along with weather warnings forecasters could begin melancholy measuring alongside the warnings. This weather is likely to induce the following in people: then the challenge to find appropriate adjectives to match the weather. Writers could be hired. I find the language of weather forecasting has such potential.

How is your weather, wherever you are?

Welcome Cinnamon Sally

We are back to neither here nor there weather. Rain on the road weather. It was so chilly inside I left the apt with two cardigans and a down jacket to discover it was a balmy 8.9 degrees outside.

*

Today there was significant family news. I met the new family addition in Dublin. Alfie Cyril has a four legged cousin and a great, mighty woman she is too. My sister introduced me by Skype to her new dog Sally Cinnamon, a rescue greyhound.

I am not a dog person, but am certainly, as of today, a Sally Cinnamon person. She lumbered over to greet me, laid her chin on my sister’s knee (“it’s a greyhound thing” said her mother) and then did a delightful yogic downward dog stretch. She is massive. Huge. In my opinion. Horsey!  Well compared to Alfie Cyril, a very podgy, hen shaped guinea pig. I had imagined more of Whippet type of dog. They sleep in a very remarkable manner greyhounds, like lounging queens from another century. Do all dogs sleep like that? My sister says she looks like Scooby Doo when she is asleep. I found her very regal, except she stuck half her back legs in her paw print furry basket while the rest of her (and there’s plenty of her) poured out across the rug. Apparently greyhounds are somnolent creatures and can sleep up to 18 hrs per day.

I am going to be knitting for Lady Sally since I think she could use some insulation on her hind humps from the ferocious Cabra wind. Really forget Downton Abbey — Sally Cinnamon in her snood slinking about Cabra will topple Lady Grantham’s mother.

Winter Reading Rituals

Here is a piece on Winter Reading Rituals I wrote for the International Festival of Authors blog back in October:

I’m not long returned from the Brooklyn Book Festival where the weather was beautifully warm and I had to pace about wearing shorts. Last weekend I travelled to the Victoria Writers Festival and Wordstock, the Portland writers festival, and tonight have just arrived home from the launch of the Vancouver Writers Fest.

I remember all four recent festivals by the weather and conversations. In New York I had to turn on the air conditioner. In Portland I had to turn on the heater and yesterday night I could not sleep because it was so windy here in Vancouver.

I love the fall season in Vancouver and pay close attention to the wind and rain. It signals for me the start of my winter reading rituals. The weather closing in, the sky turning grey means it’s time to turn in to the page.

All year I turn to the page, but in winter I embrace the page amid additional attention to physical comfort.

To establish any ritual it’s necessary to repeat it. It’s not a ritual if you only ever do it once. My reading rituals are particularly employed and important when it’s raining. As it’s regularly raining in Vancouver, I am committed.

Comfort is vital. I adopted two couches from a generous couch shedder because I deemed we needed a couch-per-reading-person (in this case two). I have invested in four hot water bottles because I deemed we needed two per person. I bought my son the softest blanket in the world which I subsequently commandeered and he has yet to raise a loud protest since he has disappeared into the vortex of video gaming. Quilts are very important in our apartment, they are dragged up and down stairs and sometimes found under the kitchen table and are thus umbilically connected to winter reading rituals. Pillows and cushions are critical.

Liquids. Liquid comfort matters during a winter reading ritual. In this case: teapot, teacups, milk jug, glass of hot port have proved trojan company. For smaller participants I admit to providing endless bags of chips and token chopped apples.

Finally I have found fuzzy or warm socks a most important part of my winter reading ritual. If my feet are cold or itchy it’s very distracting to my reading.

Once comfort is established and the weather has been noted, this liberates my brain and reading begins.

A stack of books is always within arms reach of the couch because I practice inter-reading. I might wish to digest a paragraph by reading a different work after it, or I might just dig in for the long haul with the same text.

Walks are taken only to refill hot water bottles or the teapot. Generally the plan is not to get up. Naps are sometimes taken at the book, but this isn’t encouraged. The teapot is the weapon against slumber. The curtains are always open, darkness is welcome but the curtains stay open because the weather doing its thing outside is a pleasing visual carnival.

Titles vary, but I would not necessarily reread Madame Bovary in winter. She is usually reserved for the wooden chair on Grandma’s deck.

Long-left leaves

I apologize for the interruption or hiatus in postings. I have some catching up to do because I’ve been on the road so much this season.

The past two days have seen quite a weather event. I’ll call it a single event because there was very little interruption. Rain, relentless, plunging rain — there was a small river running down the back alley this morning. And wind. 16,000 people had their power knocked out by the high wind in spots like Steveston, Southern Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast etc.

This evening though, the rain took a pause and there was a hint of fog out there when I went for a wander. It was almost a blue fog. I have decided it was a Christmas fog since there was only a hint of it and since we’re technically no where near Christmas.

The leaves are drowned to a mush, they look like long-left breakfast cereal.

If you are feeling down during the winter season please check out the In Our Time BBC Radio 4 episode I posted below and convene with Mr Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy for company and comfort. I also recommend hot water bottle, perhaps some oolong tea and the softest blanket you can find to curl up with.